If you are here reading a food blog, hunger is probably not an issue in your life. But that's not true of all Americans. Some unsettling facts about hunger in America:

According to the USDA's Economic Research Service in a report issued in November 2009, 14.6 percent of Americans were food insecure at least some time during the year and 5.7 percent of these had very low food security because the household lacked money and other resources for food. These rates are the highest recorded since 1995, when the first national food security survey was conducted. And because this report was looking at a previous year, expect these numbers to be higher in the next survey.

37 million people (which works out to about one in eight US residents) received food aid in 2009 through Feeding America, the largest network of emergency food providers in the country.

76 percent (10 million) of the client households served by Feeding America are food insecure, meaning they do not always know where they will find their next meal. 36 percent of these client households are experiencing food insecurity with hunger, meaning they are sometimes completely without a source of food.